Integrated Communications Strategy – A New Approach

By Ambika Sharma, Development Alternatives (DA)
May 2001

In the past Development Alternatives has had many communication successes but has not aggressively promoted its image. Now, in a highly competitive environment where "getting on the front page" matters, DA decided to re-orient its communications work—communication and advocacy must become a key component of all DA activities, both to raise the profile of DA and also of sustainable development issues.

This needed the complete buy in from all of its professional strength in-house. Consequently, an internal news bulletin is distributed every month and will soon be made available on the internal Web pages. Material from this is used as the basis for compiling external news articles. There is also the content manager developed in-house, which now allows the professionals to update their subject specific sections online (subject to editing by the content manager).

The Communications Coordinator and the Library Coordinator maintain close contact with the various Project Managers, communicating at least weekly via e-mail or telephone. Each produces a short monthly text showing progress against deliverables, which will feed into the institutional memory of the organization. In addition, the management has made a provision for all the professionals to meet up on every Saturday to discuss and document their work and experiences.

Document templates are provided for on the Intranet to document the weekly staff meetings. This is to ensure that all DA documents have a similar format and the people who work at the grassroots level get to convey the "real thing" to the outside world.

Getting it online is one thing; keeping it up to date is another!

This challenge, however, is not for DA's information staff alone. Moreover, DA is striving to build a culture of communication in the organization based on the foundation of wider reform throughout its structure. Given DA's limited resources and occasional logistical difficulties working out of Delhi, all staff must increasingly think of themselves as "communicators."

The success is attributed more to the fact that a lot of the staff realize that existing in isolation can lead to a premature professional death—the need for dialogue with the outside world is the key to their and the organization's sustainability!